a pastel swirl birthday cake.

It's amazing, just how many different ways you can frost a cake. Every time I turn around, it seems like a new frosting method pops up. For that reason, I often find myself making layer cakes just to try out the new frosting technique.

I first came across this blending of different coloured frosting technique on spicy ice cream, but followed the tutorial on Sweetapolita. Sweetapolita is such a talented cake decorator- she makes it look so easy but trust me, getting the colours to merge in just the right amount and smoothing the surfaces are a lot more finicky than they seem. Perhaps it's because my cake was short, which allowed minimal room for blending so I had to be extra careful on not to overdo it or the individual colours wouldn't have a chance to stand out.

All the effort was worth it though. I loved the girlish feel the cake had and it almost looked like a pretty picture, right until before I started piping.

I wanted to go for a shell border but obviously it looks like anything but. I really need to practice more. Luckily, there is nothing sprinkles cannot fix!

The cake itself is a simple hot milk sponge cake with marmalade sandwiched in between. I chose marmalade because its slight bitterness would provide a refreshing contrast from all the sweet vanilla frosting.

I totally feel like making a super tall 3, or maybe 4, layer cake so that I can use more colours!

On a side note, I should really start utilizing the photo editing in photobucket. There are so many new effects to choose from!